THE Adult Education Association, a non-profit organisation which conducts educational sessions with deprived persons, was allocated a $52 000 000 subvention in the 2022 national budget.

This subvention marked an increase of more than four million dollars over what was allocated to the organisation in the 2021 budget.

This was underscored by the Ministry of Education (MoE) in a recent press statement as it refuted claims in a letter appearing in the Stabroek News of Saturday 19th March, 2022, which claimed that the government has withdrawn funding from the AEA.

Penned by one Elijah Bijay, the letter, titled “Reportedly, the government has withdrawn funding from the Adult Education Association,” complained that the government funding to the AEA had been withdrawn. However, the MoE called the complaint “fallacious.”

“The AEA was allocated $47,847 000 in the 2021 budget. For 2022, the AEA has been allocated $52 000,000. This is an increase of more than $4 million. This information is available to the public on the Ministry of Finance’s website,” the MoE statement said.

“The Ministry of Education is fully aware of the contributions that the AEA has made and continues to make to education in Guyana. We wish to caution Mr Bijay on the need to decipher fact from fiction. In this case, a simple Internet search would have served that purpose.”

The MoE noted that it is also currently exploring the ‘Open-School’ concept and the AEA is expected to be a major player in this initiative.

“The Ministry of Education is aware of several steps taken by the AEA, because of the pandemic, to digitalise its offerings to the students of Guyana. It should be added that most of these initiatives have had a high degree of success,” the ministry said.